Hawaiian language to be featured at 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
“One World, Many Voices” highlights saving indigenous languages
University of Hawaiʻi
Associate V.P. for External Affairs, External Affairs and University Relations
Jodi Leong, (808) 492-0597
Director of Communications, External Affairs & University Relations, UH System
(Honolulu, Hawai‘i) — Millions flock to the Hawaiian Islands as tourists every year but few stop to think that it is the only home of what was once a language on the verge of extinction. By the early 1970s Hawaiian was spoken by fewer than 2,000 individuals under the age of 18 – a mark by which linguists officially classify a language as “dying”. By 1984 the community of fluent speakers had dwindled to a few elders and a tiny geographically isolated population on the island of Ni‘ihau, north of Kaua‘i. Hawaiian language speaking children under the age of 18 numbered less than fifty, and the demise of the Hawaiian language –“the ‘ōlelo” – was imminent. Enter a small but determined group of academicians and language teachers, some Hawaiian and some not, from the University of Hawai‘i and beyond, who rallied to stop the erosion of this critical part of Hawai‘i’s culture. Today one can hear the Hawaiian language spoken when landing at the Honolulu International Airport, while shopping at the local drug store, or on the street corners in downtown Honolulu. To read more, click here.